I have often wondered why there wasn't a flood of Android portable media players - now the WSJ Reports: "With the move, Samsung will round out a series of Galaxy-named gadgets that matches product for product with Apple Inc.'s line of iPods, iPad and iPhone. Samsung will have the Galaxy Player, Galaxy Tab and Galaxy smartphone. All use a variation of Google Inc.'s Android operating system and work with apps developed for it."

Then how is it open ? In that the spec is publicly known ? Everyone knows how MP3 works, too...

AAC specification is full provided and open. FAAC/FAAD are open source implementations, they lack the attention required but it most certainly can be implemented. h264 is an open standard which again is being implemented without too many problems. Sure AAC is a pain in the backside to implement, yes it is more complex but there is nothing stopping someone with enough time and man power to actually implement a high quality AAC encoder to the same quality that exists in the MP3 world in the case of LAME.

AAC specification is full provided and open. FAAC/FAAD are open source implementations, they lack the attention required but it most certainly can be implemented. h264 is an open standard which again is being implemented without too many problems. Sure AAC is a pain in the backside to implement, yes it is more complex but there is nothing stopping someone with enough time and man power to actually implement a high quality AAC encoder to the same quality that exists in the MP3 world in the case of LAME.

But why would someone do that ? MP3 has proven to be good enough as a de facto standard, so why would someone spend time to implement another patented format, paying another license fee or restricting himself from exporting his product in the US in order to do that ? Wouldn't we be better off waiting for the MP3 patents to expire ?

Is the quality increase so that, say, you can get the same quality as MP3 CBR 128KBps (above which most people don't hear the difference) in twice less space ?